The 
Pentecost 


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THE  LIBRARY 

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OF  CALIFORNIA 

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THE 

PENTECOST  OF 
CALAMITY 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

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MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE 

PENTECOST  OF 
CALAMITY 

By 

OWEN  WISTER 

Author  of  "  The  Virginian,"  etc. 


Neto  gotft 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1916 

All  rights  reserved 


D525 
v\)57 


COPYRIGHT,  1915, 

BT  THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 


COPTEIGHT,  1915, 

BT  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  August,  1915. 
Reprinted  September,  twice,  October,  twice,  November, 
three  times;  December,  four  times,  1915;  January, 
February,  twice,  1916. 


XnttonoD 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  A  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


THE  PENTECOST  OF 
CALAMITY 

Ever  the  fiery  Pentecost 

Girds  with  one  flame  the  countless  host. 

—  EMERSON. 
I 

Y  various  influences  and  agents 
the  Past  is  summoned  before 
us,  more  vivid  than  a  dream. 
The  process  seems  as  magical  as  those 
whereof  we  read  in  fairy  legends,  where  cir- 
cles are  drawn,  wands  waved,  mystic  sylla- 
bles pronounced.  Adjured  by  these  rites, 
voices  speak,  or  forms  and  faces  shape 
themselves  from  nothing.  So,  through 
certain  influences,  not  magical  at  all, 
our  brains  are  made  to  flash  with  visions 
7 


8       THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

of  other  days.  Is  there  among  us  one 
to  whom  this  experience  is  unknown? 
For  whom  no  particular  strain  of  music, 
or  no  special  perfume,  is  linked  with 
an  inveterate  association?  Music  and 
perfumes  are  among  the  most  potent 
of  these  evocatory  agents;  but  many 
more  exist,  such  as  words,  sounds,  hand- 
writing. Thus  almost  always,  at  the 
name  of  the  town  Cologne,  the  banks 
of  the  golden  stream,  the  German 
Rhine,  sweep  into  my  sight  as  first  I 
saw  them  long  ago ;  and  from  a  steamer's 
deck  I  watch  again,  and  again  count,  a 
train  composed  of  twenty-one  locomo- 
tives, moving  ominous  and  sinister  on 
their  new  errand.  That  was  July  19, 
1870.  France  had  declared  war  on 
Prussia  that  day.  Mobilization  was  be- 
ginning before  my  eyes.  I  was  ten. 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY   9 

Dates  and  anniversaries  also  perform 
the  same  office  as  music  and  perfumes. 
This  is  the  ninth  of  June.  This  day, 
last  year,  I  was  in  the  heart  of  Ger- 
many. The  beautiful,  peaceful  scene  is 
plain  yet.  It  seems  as  if  I  never  could 
forget  it  or  cease  to  love  it.  Often 
last  June  I  thought  how  different  the 
sights  I  was  then  seeing  were  from  those 
twenty-one  locomotives  rolling  their 
heavy  threat  along  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine.  And,  for  the  mere  curiosity 
of  it,  I  looked  in  my  German  diary  to 
find  if  I  had  recorded  anything  on  last 
June  ninth  that  should  be  worth  repeat- 
ing on  this  June  ninth. 

Well,  at  the  end  of  the  day's  jotted 
routine  were  the  following  sentences: 
"I  am  constantly  more  impressed  with 
the  Germans.  They  are  a  massive,  on- 


10  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

going,  steady  race.  Some  unifying  slow 
fire  is  at  work  in  them.  This  can  be 
felt,  somehow."  Such  was  my  American 
impression,  innocent  altogether,  deeply 
innocent,  and  ignorant  of  what  the 
slow  fire  was  going  to  become.  So 
were  the  peasants  and  the  other  humbler 
subjects  of  the  Empire  who  gave  me  this 
daily  impression;  they  were  innocent 
and  ignorant  too.  Therefore  is  the 
German  tragedy  deeper  even  than  the 
Belgian. 

On  June  twenty-eighth  I  was  still  in 
the  heart  of  Germany,  but  at  another 
beautiful  place,  where  further  signs  of 
Germany's  great  thrift,  order  and  com- 
petence had  met  me  at  every  turn.  It 
was  a  Sunday,  cloudless  and  hot,  with 
the  mountains  full  of  odors  from  the 
pines.  After  two  hours  of  strolling  I 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY      11 

reentered  our  hotel  to  find  a  group  of 
travelers  before  the  bulletin  board. 
Here  we  read  in  silence  the  news  of  a 
political  assassination.  The  silence  was 
prolonged,  not  because  this  news  touched 
any  of  us  nationally  but  because  any 
such  crime  must  touch  and  shock  all 
thoughtful  persons. 

At  last  the  silence  was  broken  by  an 
old  German  traveler,  who  said:  "That 
is  the  match  which  will  set  all  Europe 
in  a  blaze."  We  did  not  know  who 
he  was.  None  of  our  party  ever  knew. 
On  the  next  morning  this  party  took 
its  untroubled  way  toward  France,  a 
party  of  innocent,  ignorant  Americans, 
in  whose  minds  lingered  no  thought  of 
the  old  German's  remark.  That  even- 
ing we  slept  in  Rheims.  Our  windows 
opened  opposite  the  quiet  cathedral. 


12  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

It  towered  far  above  them  into  the 
night  and  sky,  its  presence  filling  our 
rooms  with  a  serene  and  grave  bene- 
diction. Just  to  see  it  from  one's 
pillow  gave  to  one's  thoughts  the  quality 
of  prayer. 

Two  days  later  I  took  my  leave  of  it 
by  sitting  for  a  silent  hour  alone  beneath 
its  solemn  nave.  I  can  never  be  too 
glad  that  I  bade  it  this  good-by.  Not 
long  afterward  —  only  thirty-two  days 
—  we  recollected  the  old  German's  re- 
mark, for  suddenly  it  came  true.  He 
had  known  whereof  he  spoke.  On  Au- 
gust 1,  1914,  Europe  fell  to  pieces;  and 
during  August,  1915,  in  a  few  weeks 
from  to-day,  the  anniversaries  will  be- 
gin—  public  anniversaries  and  private. 
These,  like  perfumes,  like  music,  will 
waken  legions  of  visions.  The  days  of 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  13 

the  calendar,  succeeding  one  another, 
will  ring  in  the  memories  of  hundreds 
and  thousands  like  bells.  Each  date 
will  invest  its  day  and  the  sun  or  the 
rain  thereof  with  special,  pregnant  re- 
lation to  the  bereft  and  the  mourning 
of  many  faiths  and  languages.  Thus 
all  Europe  will  be  tolling  with  memorial 
knells  inaudible,  yet  which  in  those 
ears  that  hear  them  will  sound  louder 
than  any  noise  of  shrapnel  or  calamity. 


II 


n 

ALAMITY,  like  those  far-off 
locomotives  on  the  Rhine,  has 
again  rolled  out  of  Germany 
on  her  neighbors.  Yet  this  very  Calam- 
ity it  is  that  has  given  me  back  my 
faith  in  my  own  country.  It  was  Ger- 
many at  peace  which  shook  my  faith; 
and  I  must  tell  you  of  that  peaceful, 
beautiful  Germany  in  which  I  rejoiced 
for  so  many  days,  and  of  how  I  envied 
it.  Then,  perhaps,  among  some  other 
things  I  hope  you  will  see,  you  will  see 
that  it  is  Germany  who  is,  in  truth,  the 
deepest  tragedy  of  this  war. 
The  Germany  at  peace  that  I  saw 

during    May  and  June,   1914,  was,  in 
B  17 


18    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

the  first  place,  a  constant  pleasure  to 
the  eye,  a  constant  repose  to  the  body 
and  mind.  Look  where  you  might, 
beauty  was  in  some  form  to  be  seen, 
given  its  chance  by  the  intelligence  of 
man  —  not  defaced,  but  made  the  most 
of;  and,  whether  in  towns  or  in  the 
country,  a  harmonious  spectacle  was 
the  rule.  I  thought  of  our  landscape, 
littered  with  rubbish  and  careless  fences 
and  stumps  of  trees,  hideous  with  glar- 
ing advertisements;  of  the  rusty  junk 
lying  about  our  farms  and  towns  and 
wayside  stations;  and  of  the  disfigured 
Palisades  along  the  Hudson  River. 
America  was  ugly  and  shabby  —  made 
so  by  Americans;  Germany  was  swept 
and  garnished  —  made  so  by  Germans. 
In  Nauheim  the  admirable  courtyard 
of  the  bathhouses  was  matched  by  the 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  19 

admirable  system  within.  The  conven- 
ience and  the  architecture  were  equally 
good.  For  every  hour  of  the  invalid's 
day  the  secrei^>f-4ns^reIWbeing  seemed 
to  have  been  thought  out.  On  one  side 
of  the  group  and  court  of  baths  ran  the 
chief  street,  shady  and  well-kempt,  with 
its  hotels  and  its  very  entertaining  shops ; 
on  the  other  side  spread  a  park.  This 
was  a  truly  gracious  little  region,  em- 
bowered in  trees,  with  spaces  and  walks 
and  flowers  all  near  at  hand,  yet  nothing 
crowded.  The  park  sloped  upward  to 
a  terrace  and  casino,  with  tables  for 
sitting  out  to  eat  and  drink  and  hear 
the  band,  and  with  a  concert  hall  and 
theater  for  the  evening.  Herein  come- 
dies and  little  operas  and  music,  both 
serious  and  light,  were  played. 
Nothing  was  far  from  anything;  the 


20  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

baths,  the  doctors,  the  hotels,  the  music, 
the  tennis  courts,  the  lake,  the  golf  links 
—  all  were  fitted  into  a  scheme  laid  out 
with  marvelous  capability.  Various  hills 
and  forests,  a  little  more  distant,  pro- 
vided walks  for  those  robust  enough  to 
take  them,  while  longer  excursions  in 
carriages  or  motor  cars  over  miles  of 
excellent  roads  were  all  mapped  out 
and  tariffed  in  a  terse  but  comprehensive 
guidebook.  Such  was  living  at  Nauheim. 
Dying,  I  feel  sure,  was  equally  well  ar- 
ranged ;  it  was  never  allowed  to  obtrude 
itself  on  living. 

Each  day  began  with  an  early  hour 
of  routine,  walking  and  water-drinking 
before  breakfast,  amid  surroundings 
equally  well  planned  —  an  arcade  in- 
closing a  large  level  space,  with  an  ex- 
panse of  water,  a  band  playing,  flowers 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  21 

growing  in  the  open,  cut  flowers  for  sale 
in  the  arcade  and  comfortable  seats 
where  the  doctor  permitted  pausing, 
but  no  permanent  settling  down.  Thus 
went  the  whole  day.  Everything  was 
well  planned  and  everything  worked.  I 
thought  of  America,  where  so  many 
things  look  beautiful  on  paper  and  so 
few  things  work,  because  nobody  keeps 
the  rules.  I  thought  of  our  college 
elective  system,  by  which  every  boy 
was  free  to  study  what  best  fitted  him 
for  his  career,  and  nearly  every  boy 
did  study  what  he  could  most  easily 
pass  examinations  in.  There  was  no 
elective  system  in  Nauheim.  Every- 
body kept  the  rules.  There  was  no 
breakdown,  no  failure. 

Moreover,  the   civility  of  the  various 
ministrants    to    the    invalid,    from    the 


22    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

eminent  professor-doctor  down  through 
hotel  porters  and  bath  attendants  to 
the  elevator  boy,  was  well-nigh  perfect. 
If  you  asked  for  something  out  of  the 
routine,  either  it  was  permitted  or  it 
was  satisfactorily  explained  why  it  could 
not  be  permitted.  Whether  at  the  bank, 
the  bookshop,  the  hotel,  the  railway 
station  or  in  the  street,  your  questions 
were  not  merely  understood  —  the  Ger- 
mans knew  the  answers  to  them.  And 
every  day  the  street  was  charming  with 
fresh  flowers  and  fresh  fruit  in  abundance 
at  many  corners  and  booths  —  cherries, 
strawberries,  plums,  apricots,  grapes, 
both  cheap  and  good,  as  here  they  never 
are.  But  the  great  luxury,  the  great 
repose,  was  that  each  person  fitted  his 
job,  did  it  well,  took  it  seriously.  After 
our  American  way  of  taking  it  as  a  joke, 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  23 

particularly  when  you  fumble  it,  this 
German  way  was  almost  enough  to 
cure  a  sick  man  without  further  treat- 
ment. 


Ill 


m 

HIS  serenity  of  living  was  not 
got  up  for  the  stranger;  it 
was  not  to  meet  his  market 
that  a  complex  and  artificial  ease  had 
been  constructed,  bearing  no  relation  to 
what  lay  beyond  its  limits.  That  sort 
of  thing  is  to  be  found  among  ourselves 
in  isolated  spots,  though  far  less  perfect 
and  far  more  expensive.  Nauheim  was 
merely  a  blossom  on  the  general  tree. 
It  was  when  I  began  my  walks  in  the 
country  and  found  everywhere  a  corre- 
sponding, ordered  excellence,  and  came 
to  talk  more  and  more  with  the  peasants 
and  to  notice  the  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren, that  the  scheme  of  Germany  grew 
impressive  to  me. 

27 


28  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

So  had  it  not  been  in  1870,  as  I  looked 
back  on  my  early  impressions,  reading 
them  now  in  my  maturer  judgment's 
light.  So  had  it  not  been  even  in  1882 
and  1883,  when  I  had  again  seen  ,the 
country.  We  various  invalids  of  Nau- 
heim  presently  began  to  compare  notes. 
All  of  us  were  going  about  the  country, 
among  the  gardens  and  the  farms,  or 
across  the  plain  through  the  fruit  trees 
to  little  Friedberg  on  its  hill  —  an  old 
castle,  a  steep  village,  a  clean  Teutonic 
gem,  dropped  perfect  out  of  the  Middle 
Ages  into  the  present,  yet  perfectly 
keeping  up  with  the  present.  Many 
of  the  peasants  in  the  plain,  men  and 
women,  were  of  those  who  brought 
their  flowers  and  produce  to  sell  in 

4 

Nauheim  —  humble  people,  poor  in  what 
you  call  worldly  goods,  but    seemingly 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY     29 

very  few  of  them  poor  in  the  great  es- 
sential possession. 

We  invalids  compared  notes  and 
found  ourselves  all  of  one  mind.  Ten 
or  twelve  of  us  were,  at  the  several 
hotels,  acquaintances  at  home ;  every  one 
had  been  struck  with  the  contentment 
in  the  German  face.  Contentment ! 
Among  the  old  and  young  of  both 
sexes  this  was  the  dominating  note, 
the  great  essential  possession.  The 
question  arose:  What  is  the  best  sign 
that  a  government  is  doing  well  by  its 
people  —  is  agreeing  with  its  people, 
so  to  speak?  None  of  us  were  quite 
so  sure  as  we  used  to  be  that  our  native 
formula,  "Of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
for  the  people,"  is  the  universal  ultimate 
truth. 

Twice  two  is  four,  wherever  you  go; 


30    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

this  is  as  certain  in  Berlin  as  it  is  at 
Washington  or  in  the  cannibal  islands. 
But,  until  mankind  grows  uniform,  can 
government  be  treated  as  you  treat 
mathematics?  Until  mankind  grows 
uniform,  will  any  form  of  government 
be  likely  to  fit  the  whole  world  like  a 
glove?  So  long  as  mankind  continues 
as  various  as  men's  digestions,  better 
to  look  at  government  as  if  it  were  a  sort 
of  diet  or  treatment.  How  is  the  gov- 
ernment agreeing  with  its  people?  This 
is  the  question  to  ask  in  each  country. 
And  what  is  the  surest  sign?  Could 
any  sign  be  surer  than  the  general  ex- 
pression, the  composite  face  of  the 
people  themselves?  This  goes  deeper 
than  skyscrapers  and  other  material 
aspects. 
I  had  sailed  away  from  skyscrapers 


THE   PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    31 

and  limited  expresses;  from  farmers 
sowing  crops  wastefully;  from  houses 
burned  through  carelessness;  from 
forests  burned  through  carelessness; 
from  heaps  of  fruit  rotting  on  the  ground 
in  one  place  and  hundreds  of  men  hungry 
in  another  place.  I  had  sailed  away 
from  the  city  face  and  the  country  face 
of  America,  and  neither  one  was  the 
face  of  content.  They  looked  driven, 
unpeaceful,  dissatisfied.  The  hasty 
American  was  not  looking  after  his 
country  himself,  and  nobody  was  there 
to  make  him  look  after  it  while  he  rushed 
about  climbing,  climbing  —  and  to  what  ? 
A  higher  skyscraper.  It  was  very  rest- 
ful to  come  to  a  place  where  the  spirit  of 
man  was  in  stable  equilibrium;  where 
man's  lot  was  in  stable  equilibrium; 
where  never  a  schoolboy  had  been  told 


32    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

he  might  become  President  and  every 
schoolboy  knew  he  could  not  be  Emperor. 

The  students  on  a  walking  holiday 
from  their  universities  often  wandered 
singing  through  Nauheim.  Somewhat 
Tyrolese  in  get-up,  sometimes  with  odd, 
Byronic  collars,  too  much  open  at  the 
neck,  they  wore  their  knapsacks  and  the 
caps  that  showed  their  guild.  They 
came  generally  in  the  early  morning 
while  the  invalids  were  strolling  at  the 
Sprudel.  The  sound  of  their  young 
voices  singing  in  part-chorus  would  be 
heard,  growing  near,  passing  close,  then 
dying  away  melodiously  among  the  trees. 

A  single  little  sharp  discord  vibrated 
through  all  this  German  harmony  one 
day  when  I  learned  that  in  the  Empire 
more  children  committed  suicide  than 
in  any  other  country. 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  33 

But  soon  this  discord  was  lost  amid 
the  massive  Teutonic  polyphony  of  well- 
being.  Of  this  well-being  knowledge 
was  enlarged  by  excursions  to  various 
towns.  To  Worms,  for  instance,  that 
we  might  see  the  famous  Luther  Monu- 
ment. Part  of  the  journey  thither  lay 
through  a  fine  forest.  This  the  city 
of  Frankfurt-am-Main  owns  and  has 
forested  for  seven  hundred  years;  using 
the  wood  all  the  tune,  but  so  wisely 
that  the  supply  has  maintained  itself 
against  the  demand.  I  thought  of  our 
own  forests,  looted  and  leveled,  and  of 
ourselves  boasting  our  glorious  future 
while  we  obliterated  that  future's  re- 
sources. Frankfurt  was  there  to  teach 
us  better,  had  we  chosen  to  learn. 


IV 


IV 

N  Frankfurt-am-Main  was  born 
one  of  the  three  supreme  poets 
since  Greece  and  Rome — Goethe 
—  from  whom  I  shall  quote  more  than 
once;  but  Frankfurt  has  present  glories 
that  I  saw.  It  is  one  of  many  beauti- 
fully governed  German  cities.  I  grew 
even  fond  of  its  Union  Station,  since 
through  this  gate  I  entered  so  often  the 
pleasures  and  edifications  of  the  town. 
The  trains  were  a  symbol  of  the  whole 
Empire.  About  a  mile  north  of  Nauheim 
the  railroad  passes  under  a  bridge  and 
curves  out  of  sight.  The  four-fifteen 
was  apt  to  be  my  express  to  Frankfurt. 
I  would  stand  on  the  platform,  watch  in 
hand,  looking  northward  for  my  train. 
37 


38    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

At  four-eleven  the  bridge  was  invariably 
an  empty  hole.  Invariably  at  four- 
twelve  the  engine  filled  the  hole;  then 
the  train  glided  in  quietly,  and  smoothly 
glided  on,  almost  punctual  to  the  second. 
So  did  the  other  trains. 

The  conductors  were  officials  of  dis- 
ciplined courtesy  and  informed  minds. 
They  appeared  at  the  door  of  your 
compartment,  erect,  requesting  your 
ticket  in  an  established  formula.  If 
you  asked  them  something  they  told 
you  correctly  and  with  a  Teutonic 
adequacy  that  was  grave,  but  not  gruff. 
Once  only  in  a  score  of  journeys  did  I 
encounter  bad  manners.  Now  I  should 
never  choose  these  admirable  conduc- 
tors for  companions,  but  as  conductors 
they  were  superior  to  the  engaging 
fellow  citizen  who  took  my  ticket  down 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  39 

in  Georgia  and,  when  I  asked  did  his 
train  usually  make  its  scheduled  con- 
nection at  Yemassee  Junction,  cried 
out  with  contagious  mirth: 

"My  Lawd,  suh,  'most  nevah !" 
In  these  German  trains  another  little 
discord  jarred  with  some  regularity: 
the  German  passengers  they  brought 
from  Berlin,  or  were  taking  back  to 
Berlin,  were  of  a  heavy  impenetrable 
rudeness  —  quite  another  breed  than 
the  kindly  Hessians  of  Frankfurt. 

We  know  the  saying  of  a  floor  —  that 
it  is  so  clean  "you  could  eat  your  dinner 
off  it."  All  the  streets  of  Frankfurt, 
that  I  saw,  were  clean  like  this.  The 
system  of  street  cars  was  lucid  —  and 
blessedly  noiseless  I  —  and  their  conduc- 
tors informed  with  the  same  adequate 
gravity  I  have  already  noted. 


40  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

I  found  that  I  developed  a  special 
affection  for  Route  19,  because  this  took 
me  from  the  station  to  the  opera  house. 
But  all  routes  took  one  to  and  through 
aspects  of  municipal  perfection  at  which 
one  stared  with  envy  as  one  thought  of 
home. 

Oh,  yes !  Frankfurt  is  a  name  to  me 
compact  with  memories  —  memories  of 
clean  streets ;  of  streets  full  of  by-passers 
who  could  direct  you  when  you  asked 
your  way;  of  streets  empty  of  beggars, 
empty  of  all  signs  of  desolate,  drunken 
or  idle  poverty;  of  streets  bordered  by 
substantial  stone  dwellings,  with  fra- 
grant gardens;  of  excellent  shops;  the 
streets  full  of  prosperous  movement  and 
bustle ;  an  absence  of  rags,  a  presence  of 
good  stout  clothes ;  a  people  of  contented 
faces,  whether  they  talked  or  were  silent 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  41 

—  the  same  firm  and  broad  contentment, 
like  a  tree  deep-rooted,  in  the  city  face 
that  was  in  the  country  face. 

These  burghers,  these  Frankfurters, 
seemed  to  be  going  about  their  business 
with  a  sort  of  solid  yet  placid  energy, 
well  and  deliberately  aimed,  that  would 
hit  the  mark  at  once  without  wasting 
powder.  It  was  very  different  and  very 
superior  to  the  ill-arranged  and  hectic 
haste  of  New  York  and  Chicago;  here 
nobody  seemed  driven  as  though  by 
invisible  furies  —  the  German  business 
mind  was  not  out  of  breath. 

Such  are  my  memories  of  Frankfurt 
at  work.  Frankfurt  at  leisure  was  to  be 
seen  in  its  Palm  Garden.  This  was  the 
town's  place  of  general  recreation ;  large, 
various,  beautifully  and  intelligently 
planned;  with  space  for  babies  to  roll 


42    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

in  safety,  and  there  were  the  babies  roll- 
ing, and  their  nurses;  with  courts  for 
tennis,  and  thither  I  saw  adolescent 
Frankfurt  strolling  in  flannels  and  short 
skirts  after  business  hours ;  with  benches 
where  sat  the  more  elderly,  taking  the  air 
and  gazing  at  the  games  or  the  flowers 
or  the  pleasant  trees;  with  paths  more 
sequestered  that  wound  among  bowers, 
convenient  for  sweethearts  —  but  I  did 
not  see  any,  because  I  forbore  to  look.  A 
central  building  held  tropic  plants  and 
basins,  and  large  rooms  for  bad  weather, 
I  suppose,  with  a  restaurant;  but  on 
this  fine  day  the  music  played  and  we 
dined  outside. 

An  entrance  fee,  very  small,  served  to 
make  you  respect  the  Palm  Garden,  since 
humanity  seldom  respects  what  it  pays 
nothing  for.  Most  unexpected  show  of 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    43 

all  in  this  Palm  Garden  were  the  flowers 
under  glass.  I  had  erroneously  supposed 
that  any  German  scheme  of  color  would 
be  heavy,  and  possibly  garish.  Never 
had  I  beheld  more  exquisite  subtlety  on 
so  extended  a  scale  of  arrangement. 
One  walked  through  aisle  after  aisle  of 
roses  and  other  blooms  in  these  green- 
houses —  everywhere  was  the  same  deli- 
cate sense  and  feeling ;  the  same,  in  fact, 
in  these  flower  schemes  that  one  finds  in 
German  lyric  verse,  and  in  the  songs  of 
Schubert,  Schumann  and  Franz. 

It  was  in  the  opera  house  —  Frankfurt 
has  a  fine  and  commodious  one  —  that 
my  whole  impression  of  Germany's  glory 
ciilminated.  The  performances  drew 
their  light  from  no  Melbas  or  Carusos, 
or  other  meteors,  but  from  a  fixed  con- 
stellation, now  and  then  enriched  by 


44  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

some  visitor ;  it  was  teamwork  of  drilled 
and  even  excellence,  singers,  chorus, 
orchestra  and  scenery  unitedly  equal  to 
the  occasion,  in  operas  old  and  new,  an 
immense  sweep  of  repertory,  with  an 
audience  to  match  —  an  accustomed  au- 
dience, to  whom  music  was  traditional 
food,  music  having  always  grown  here- 
about plenteously,  indigenously,  so  that 
they  took  it  as  naturally  as  they  took 
their  Rhine  wine,  paying  for  it  as  moder- 
ately, going  to  hear  it  in  rather  plain 
clothes,  as  a  rule  —  men  in  day  dress, 
women  in  high-neck;  not  an  audience 
that  had  to  put  on  its  diamonds  in  order 
to  listen  conspicuously  to  a  costly  and 
not  comprehended  exotic. 

The  difference  between  hearing  opera 
where  it  grows  and  hearing  it  in  New 
York  is  the  difference  between  eating 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  45 

strawberries  warm  from  their  vines  in 
June  and  strawberries  in  January  that 
have  come  a  thousand  miles  by  freight. 
Where  opera  grows,  it  is  the  blend  of 
native  music,  singers  and  listeners  that 
gives  a  ripe  flavor  of  a  warmth  which 
Fifth  Avenue  can  never  purchase. 

This,  every  performance  in  Frankfurt 
had ;  but  even  this  could  be  raised  to  a 
higher  key  of  inspiration.  I  walked  in 
one  night  and  found  myself  amid  a  pious 
ceremonial.  They  were  giving  an  old 
work,  of  bygone  design,  stiff  in  outline, 
noble,  remote  from  all  present  things. 
Why  did  they  revive  this  somewhat  pale 
and  rigid  classic  ?  For  contrast,  variety  ? 
Not  at  all.  Two  hundred  years  ago  this 
day,  Gluck  had  been  born.  Gluck  had 
written  this  opera.  For  this  reason, 
then,  Frankfurt  was  assembled  to  hear 


46  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

Gluck's  music  and  remember  him;  and, 
as  I  looked  at  these  living  Germans  honor- 
ing their  classics,  I  thought  it  was  truly 
a  splendid  people  that  not  only  possessed 
but  practically  nourished  themselves  with 
these  masterpieces  of  their  great  dead. 

But  this  was  not  all.  This  was  Ger- 
many looking  at  its  Past.  In  the  Frank- 
furt opera  house  I  also  learned  one  of  the 
ways  in  which  Germany  attends  to  its 
Future.  It  was  on  a  Sunday  afternoon. 
As  I  crossed  the  open  space  toward  the 
opera  house  it  seemed  as  though  I  were 
the  only  grown  person  bound  there. 
Children  by  threes  and  fours,  and  in  little 
groups,  were  streaming  from  every  quar- 
ter, entering  every  door,  tripping  up  the 
wide,  handsome  stairs,  filling  all  the  seats 
—  boys  and  girls;  it  was  like  the  Pied 
Piper  of  Hamelin.  After  a  few  minutes 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    47 

I  found  that  I  was  indeed  almost  alone 
amid  a  rippling  sea  of  children  —  nearly 
two  thousand,  as  I  later  learned.  In  the 
boxes  here  and  there  was  a  parent  or 
two  with  a  family  party,  and  dotted 
about  the  house  a  few  scattered  older 
heads  among  the  young  ones. 

The  overture  began.  "Hush!"  went 
several  little  voices;  the  sprightly,  ex- 
pectant Babel  fell  to  silence;  they 
listened  like  a  congregation  in  church. 

Then  the  curtain  rose.  It  was  a  gay 
old  opera,  tuneful,  full  of  boisterous,  in- 
nocent comedy  and  simple  sentiment. 
Not  Gluck  this  time ;  Gluck  would  have 
been  a  trifle  severe  for  their  young  un- 
derstandings. The  enthusiasm  and  the 
attention  of  these  boys  and  girls,  with 
their  clapping  of  hands  and  their  laugh- 
ter, soon  affected  the  spirits  of  the  singers 


48  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

as  a  radiant  day  in  spring ;  it  affected  me. 
I  envied  the  happy  parents  who  had  their 
children  round  them;  it  was  like  some 
sort  of  wonderful  April  light.  Beneath 
it  the  quaint,  s\V3et  old  opera  shone  like 
a  fruit  tree  in  blossom.  The  actors 
became  as  children  again  themselves ;  so 
did  the  fiddlers;  so  did  the  conductor. 
I  doubt  if  that  little  old  opera,  Czaar  und 
Zimmermann,  had  ever  felt  younger  in 
its  life;  and  I  thought  if  the  spirit  of 
Goethe  were  watching  Frankfurt,  his 
city,  to-day,  it  would  add  a  new  happi- 
ness to  a  moment  of  his  Eternity. 

Between  the  acts  I  was  full  of  ques- 
tions. What  occasion  was  this?  I  read 
the  program,  wherein  was  set  forth  a  most 
interesting  account  of  the  composer  — 
his  character,  life  and  adventures,  with  a 
historic  account  also  of  Peter  the  Great, 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  49 

the  hero  of  the  opera ;  but  nothing  about 
the  occasion.  So  in  the  lobby  I  ad- 
dressed myself  to  a  group  of  the  men 
I  had  seen  dotted  among  the  rows  of 
children.  The  men  were  schoolmasters. 
The  occasion  was  an  experiment.  The 
children  were  of  the  public  schools  of 
Frankfurt  —  not  the  oldest  scholars,  but 
the  middle  grades  of  the  schools.  For 
the  oldest,  Frankfurt  had  already  pro- 
vided opera  days,  but  this  was  the  first 
ever  given  for  these  younger  boys  and 
girls.  The  cost  was  twelve-and-a-half 
cents  a  seat.  If  it  proved  a  success,  a 
second  would  follow  in  two  weeks.  At 
the  theater,  throughout  each  winter 
school  term,  plays  were  given  expressly 
for  them  in  this  way  —  the  great  German 
classics;  but  never  any  opera  before 
to-day. 


50    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

Well,  the  performance  went  on ;  but  I 
was  obliged,  near  the  end  of  it,  to  hasten 
away  to  my  train  for  Nauheim,  most  re- 
luctantly leaving  the  sight  and  company 
of  those  two  thousand  joyous  children  of 
the  Frankfurt  public  schools.  "Rosy 
cheeks  predominated;  eyeglasses  were 
rare."  —  Again  I  quote  from  my  own 
diary:  —  "The  children  seemed  between 
ten  and  fifteen.  The  boys  had  good  fore- 
heads and  big  backs  to  their  heads." 


OTHING  can  efface  this  mem- 
ory, nothing  can  efface  the 
whole  impression  of  Germany ; 
in  retrospect  this  picture  rises  clear  — 
the  fair  aspect  and  order  of  the  country 
and  the  cities,  the  well-being  of  the 
people,  their  contented  faces,  their 
grave  adequacy,  their  kindliness;  and, 
crowning  all  material  prosperity,  the  feel- 
ing for  beauty  as  shown  by  their  gardens, 
and,  better  and  more  important  still,  the 
reverent  value  for  their  great  native 
poets  and  musicians,  so  attentive,  so 
cherishing,  seeing  to  it  that  the  young 
generation  began  early  its  acquaintance 
with  the  masterpieces  that  are  Germany's 
heritage  of  inspiration. 
53 


54  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

Such  was  the  splendor  of  this  empire  as 
it  unrolled  before  me  through  May  and 
June,  1914,  that  by  contrast  the  state 
of  its  two  great  neighbors,  France  and 
England,  seemed  distressing  and  unen- 
viable. Paris  was  shabby  and  incoherent, 
London  full  of  unrest.  Instead  of  Ger- 
many's order,  confusion  prevailed  in 
France;  instead  of  Germany's  placidity, 
disturbance  prevailed  in  England;  and 
in  both  France  and  England  incompetence 
seemed  the  chief  note.  The  French  face, 
alike  in  city  or  country,  was  too  often  a 
face  of  worried  sadness  or  revolt;  men 
spoke  of  political  scandals  and  dissensions 
petty  and  unpatriotic  in  spirit,  and  a 
political  trial,  revealing  depths  of  every 
sort  of  baseness  and  dishonor,  filled  the 
newspapers;  while  in  England,  besides 
discord  of  suffrage  and  discord  of  labor, 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    55 

civil  war  seemed  so  imminent  that  no 
one  would  have  been  surprised  to  hear  of 
it  any  day. 

So  that  I  thought:  Suppose  a  soul, 
arrived  on  earth  from  another  world, 
wholly  ignorant  of  earth,  without  any 
mortal  ties  whatever,  were  given  its  choice 
after  a  survey  of  the  nations,  which  it 
should  be  born  in  and  belong  to?  In 
May,  June  and  July,  1914,  my  choice 
would  have  been,  not  France,  not  Eng- 
land, not  America,  but  Germany. 

It  was  on  the  seventh  day  of  June, 
1914,  that  Frankfurt  assembled  her  school 
children  in  the  opera  house,  to  further 
their  taste  and  understanding  of  Ger- 
many's supreme  national  art.  Exactly 
eleven  months  later,  on  May  7,  1915,  a 
German  torpedo  sank  the  Lusitania ;  and 
the  cities  of  the  Rhine  celebrated  this  also 
for  their  school  children. 


VI 


VI 

HE  world  is  in  agony.  We  wit- 
ness the  most  terrible  catas- 
trophe known  to  mankind  — 
most  terrible,  not  from  its  huge  size, 
but  because  it  is  a  moral  catastrophe. 
Through  centuries  of  suffering  and 
cruelty,  guided  by  religion,  we  thought 
we  had  attained  to  knowledge  of  and 
belief  in  a  public  right  between  nations, 
and  an  honorable  warfare,  if  warfare 
must  be.  This  has  been  shattered  to 
pieces.  No  need  to  investigate  further 
the  atrocities  at  Liege  or  Louvain. 
These  and  more  have  indeed  been  amply 
proved,  but  what  need  of  proof  after  the 
Lusitania  school  festival?  In  that  holi- 
59 


60    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

day  we  see  the  feast  of  Kultur,  the  Teu- 
tonic climax.  How  came  it  to  pass  ?  Is 
it  the  same  Germany  who  gave  those  two 
holidays  to  her  school  children?  The 
opera  in  Frankfurt,  and  this  orgy  of 
barbaric  blood-lust,  guttural  with  the 
deep  basses  of  the  fathers  and  shrill  with 
the  trebles  of  their  young  ?  Their  young, 
to  whom  they  teach  one  day  the  gentle 
melodies  of  Lortzing,  and  to  exult  in 
world-assassination  on  another? 

Goethe  said  —  and  the  words  glow 
with  new  prophetic  light :  "  Germans  are 
of  yesterday ;  .  .  .  a  few  centuries  must 
still  elapse  before  ...  it  will  be  said 
of  them,  'It  is  long  since  they  were 
barbarians.'"  And  again:  "National 
hatred  is  a  peculiar  thing.  You  will 
always  find  it  strongest  and  most  violent 
where  there  is  the  lowest  degree  of  Kul- 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    61 

tur."  But  how  came  it  to  pass?  Do 
the  two  holidays  proceed  from  the  same 
Kultur,  the  same  Fatherland? 

They  do;  and  nothing  in  the  whole 
story  of  mankind  is  more  strange  than 
the  case  of  Germany  —  how  Germany 
through  generations  has  been  carefully 
trained  for  this  wild  spring  at  the  throat 
of  Europe  that  she  has  made.  The  Ser- 
vian assassination  has  nothing  to  do 
with  it,  save  that  it  accidentally  struck 
the  hour.  Months  and  years  before 
that,  Germany  was  crouching  for  her 
spring.  In  one  respect  the  war  she  has 
incubated  is  the  old  assault  of  Xerxes, 
of  Alexander,  of  Napoleon,  of  every  one 
who  has  been  visited  by  the  dangerous 
dream  of  world  conquest.  Only,  never 
before  has  the  dream  been  taught  to  a 
people  on  such  a  scale,  not  merely  be- 


62    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

cause  of  the  vast  modern  apparatus,  but 
much  more  because  no  subjects  of  any 
despot  have  ever  been  so  politically  docile 
and  credulous  as  the  Germans. 

In  another  respect  this  war  resembles 
strikingly  our  own  and  the  French  Revo- 
lution. All  three  were  prepared  and 
fomented  by  books,  by  teachings  from 
books.  The  American  brain  seized  hold 
of  certain  doctrines  and  generalizations 
of  Locke,  Montesquieu,  Burlamaqui  and 
Beccaria  concerning  the  rights  of  man 
and  the  consent  of  the  governed.  The 
French  brain  nourished  and  inspired 
itself  with  some  theorems  of  the  ency- 
clopedists and  of  Rousseau  about,  man's 
natural  innocence  and  the  social  con- 
tract. The  Teutonic  brain  assimilated 
some  diplomatic  and  philosophic  pre- 
cepts laid  down  by  Machiavelli, 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    63 

Nietzsche  and  Treitschke.  Indeed, 
Fichte,  during  the  Winter  of  1807-08, 
at  the  University  of  Berlin,  made  an 
address  to  the  German  people  which 
may  be  accounted  the  first  famous  aca- 
demic harbinger  and  source  of  the  present 
Teutonic  state  of  mind.  Here  the 
parallel  stops.  With  America  and 
France,  war  made  way  for  independence, 
liberty  and  freedom,  political  and  moral ; 
Germany  would  establish  everywhere  her 
absolute  military  despotism.  We  shall 
reach  in  due  course  the  full  statement  of 
her  creed ;  we  are  not  ready  for  it  yet. 


VII 


o 


VII 

JTEN  of  late  I  have  thought 
of  those  twenty-one  locomo- 
tives moving  along  the  bank 
of  the  Rhine.  They  were  a  symbol. 
They  stood  for  the  House  of  Hohen- 
zollern;  they  carried  Csesar  and  all 
his  fortunes,  which  had  begun  long 
before  locomotives  were  invented.  July 
19,  1870,  is  one  of  the  dates  that  does  not 
remain  of  the  same  size,  but  grows,  has 
not  done  growing  yet,  will  be  one  of  His- 
tory's enormous  dates  before  it  is  done 
growing.  The  heavier  descendants  of 
those  locomotives  have  been  lugging  to 
France  a  larger  destruction,  and  more 
hideous,  than  their  ancestors  dragged 
67 


68  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

there;  but  this  new  freight  belongs  to 
the  same  haul,  forms  part  of  one  vast 
organic  materialistic  growth,  and  spiritual 
eclipse,  of  which  1870  and  1914  are  im- 
portant parts,  but  by  no  means  the 
whole. 

Woven  with  it  is  the  struggle  of 
nations  for  the  possession  of  their  own 
soul.  Consider  1870  in  this  light: 
Through  that  war  France  took  her  soul 
out  of  the  custody  of  an  Emperor  and 
handed  it  to  the  people;  through  the 
same  war  Germany  placed  her  soul  in 
the  hands  of  an  Emperor.  Defeated 
France,  rid  of  her  Bonapartes;  victori- 
ous Germany,  shackled  to  her  Hohen- 
zollern  !  In  the  light  of  forty-five  years 
how  those  two  opposite  actions  gleam 
with  significance,  and  how  in  the  same 
light  the  two  words  defeat  and  victory 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  69 

grow  lambent  with  shifting  import ! 
Unless  our  democratic  faith  be  vain, 
France  walked  forward  then,  and  Ger- 
many backward.  But  this  did  not  seem 
so  last  June. 


VIII 


VIII 

AD  it  not  culminated  before 
our  eyes,  the  case  of  Ger- 
many would  be  perfectly 
incredible.  As  it  stands  to-day,  the 
truly  incredible  thing  is  that  she  should 
have  made  her  spring  at  the  throat  of 
an  unexpecting,  unprepared  world. 
Now  that  she  has  sprung,  the  diagnosis 
of  her  case  has  been  often  and  ably  made 
—  before  the  event,  Dr.  Charles  Sarolea, 
a  Belgian  gentleman,  made  it  notably; 
but  prophets  are  seldom  recognized 
except  by  posterity.  The  case  of  Ger- 
many is  a  hospital  case,  a  case  for  the 
alienist ;  the  mania  of  grandeur,  comple- 
mented by  the  mania  of  persecution. 
73 


74    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

Very  well  do  I  remember  the  first 
dawning  hint  I  had  of  this  diseased  men- 
tal state.  It  was  Wednesday,  August  5, 
1914.  We  were  in  mid-ocean.  Before 
the  bulletin  board  we  passengers  were 
clustered  to  read  that  day's  marconigram 
and  learn  what  more  of  Europe  had 
fallen  to  pieces  since  yesterday.  This 
morning  was  posted  the  Kaiser's  proc- 
lamation, quoting  Hamlet,  calling  on  his 
subjects  "to  be  or  not  to  be,"  and  to 
defy  a  world  conspired  against  them. 
In  these  words  there  was  such  a  wild, 
incoherent  ring  of  exaltation  that  I  said 
to  a  friend :  "Can  he  be  off  his  head?" 

Later  in  that  vpyage  we  sped  silent 
and  unlanterned  through  the  fog  from 
two  German  cruisers,  of  which  nobody 
seemed  personally  afraid  but  one 
stewardess.  She  said:  "They're  all 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    75 

wild  beasts.  They  would  send  us  all  to 
the  bottom."  No  one  believed  her. 
Since  then  we  believe  her.  Since  then 
we  have  heard  the  wild  incoherent  ring  in 
many  German  voices  besides  the  Kaiser's, 
and  we  know  to-day  that  Germany's 
mania  is  analogous  to  those  mental  epi- 
demics of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  fanati- 
cism, usually  religious,  sent  entire  com- 
munities into  various  forms  of  madness. 
The  case  of  Germany  is  the  Prussian- 
izing of  Germany.  Long  after  all  of 
us  are  gone,  men  will  still  be  studying 
this  war;  and,  whatever  responsibility 
for  it  be  apportioned  among  the  nations, 
the  huge  weight  and  bulk  of  guilt  will 
be  laid  on  Prussia  and  the  Hohenzollern 
—  unless,  indeed,  it  befall  that  Germany 
conquer  the  world  and  the  Kaiser  dic- 
tate his  version  of  History  to  us  all, 


76  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

suppressing  all  other  versions,  as  he 
has  conducted  the  training  of  his  sub- 
jects since  1888.  But  this  will  not  be; 
whatever  comes  first,  this  cannot  be 
the  end.  If  I  believed  that  the  earth 
would  be  Prussianized,  life  would  cease 
to  be  desirable. 

To  me  the  whole  case  of  Germany, 
the  whole  process,  seems  a  fatalistic 
thing,  destined,  inevitable ;  cosmic  forces 
above  and  beyond  men's  comprehension 
flooding  this  northern  land  with  their 
high  tide,  as  once  they  flooded  southern 
coasts;  giving  to  this  Teuton  race  its 
turn,  its  day,  its  hour  of  white  heat 
and  of  bloom,  its  temperamental  great- 
ness, its  strength  and  excess  of  vital 
sap,  intellectual,  procreative  —  all  this 
grandeur  to  be  hurled  into  tragedy  by 
its  own  action. 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  77 

The  process  goes  back  a  long  way 
behind  Napoleon  —  who  stayed  it  for 
a  while  —  to  years  when  we  see  the 
Germany  of  the  Reformation,  Poetry, 
Music,  the  grand  Germany,  blossoming 
in  the  very  same  moment  that  the 
Prussian  poison  was  also  germinating. 
About  1830,  Heine  perceived  and  wrote 
scornfully  concerning  the  new  and  evil 
influence.  This  was  a  germination  of 
state  and  family  ambition  combined,  fer- 
menting at  last  into  lust  for  world  do- 
minion. It  grows  quite  visible  first  in 
Frederick  the  Great.  By  him  the  Prus- 
sian state  of  mind  and  international  ethics 
began  to  be  formulated.  By  force  and 
fraud  he  annexed  weak  peoples'  territory. 
He  cut  Poland's  body  in  three,  blas- 
phemously inviting  Russia  and  Austria 
to  partake  with  him  of  his  Eucharist. 


78    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

Theft  has  followed  theft  since  Freder- 
ick's. His  cynical,  strong  spirit  guided 
Prussia  after  Waterloo,  guided  first  the 
predecessor  of  Bismarck  and  next  Bis- 
marck himself,  with  his  stealing  of 
Schleswig-Holstein,  his  dishonest  muti- 
lation of  the  telegram  at  Ems  and  the 
subsequent  rape  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine 
in  1870.  Very  plain  it  is  to  see  now, 
and  very  sad,  why  the  small  separate 
German  states  that  had  indeed  produced 
their  giants  —  their  Luthers,  Goethes, 
Beethovens  —  but  had  always  suffered 
military  defeat,  had  been  the  shambles 
of  their  conquerors  for  centuries,  should 
after  1870  hail  their  new-created 
Emperor.  Had  he  not  led  them  united 
to  the  first  glory  and  conquest  they 
had  ever  known?  Had  he  not  got 
them  back  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  which 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    79 

France  had  stolen  from  them  two  hun- 
dred years  ago?  So  they  handed  their 
soul  to  the  Hohenzollern.  This  marks 
the  beginning  of  the  end. 


IX 


IX 

E  can  hardly  emphasize  too 
much,  or  sufficiently  under- 
line, the  moral  effect  of 
1870  on  the  German  nature,  the  in- 
fluence it  had  on  the  German  mind. 
It  is  essential  to  a  clear  understanding 
of  the  full  Prussianizing  process  that 
now  set  in.  On  the  German's  innate 
docility  and  credulity  many  have  dwelt, 
but  few  on  what  1870  did  to  this.  Only 
with  Bismarck's  quick,  tremendous  vic- 
tory over  France  as  the  final  explanation 
is  the  abject  and  servile  faith  that  the 
Germans  thenceforth  put  in  Prussia 
rendered  conceivable  to  reason.  They 
blindly  swallowed  the  sham  that  Bis- 
marck gave  them  as  universal  suffrage. 
83 


84    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

They  swallowed  extreme  political  and 
military  restraint.  They  swallowed  a 
rigid  compulsion  in  schools,  which  led 
to  the  excess  in  child  suicide  I  have 
mentioned.  They  swallowed  a  state  of 
life  where  outside  the  indicated  limits 
almost  nothing  was  permitted  and 
almost  everything  was  forbidden. 

But  all  this  proscription  is  merely 
material  and  has  been  attended  by 
great  material  welfare.  Intellectual 
speculation  was  apparently  unfettered; 
but  he  who  dared  philosophize  about 
Liberty  and  the  Divine  right  of  Kings 
found  it  was  not.  Prussia  put  its  uni- 
form not  only  on  German  bodies  but 
on  their  brains.  Literature  and  music 
grew  correspondingly  sterilized.  Drama, 
fiction,  poetry  and  the  comic  papers 
became  invaded  by  a  new  violence  and 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  85 

a  new,  heavy  obscenity.  Impatience 
with  the  noble  German  classics  was 
bred  by  Prussia.  What  wonder,  since 
freedom  was  their  essence? 

Beethoven,  after  Napoleon  made  him- 
self Emperor,  tore  off  the  dedication  of 
his  "  Eroica  "  symphony  to  Napoleon. 
And  Goethe  had  said  :  "  Napoleon  affords 
us  an  example  of  the  danger  of  elevating 
oneself  to  the  Absolute  and  sacrificing 
everything  to  the  carrying  out  of  an 
idea."  Goethe  fell  frankly  out  of  date  in 
Berlin.  Symphony  orchestras  could  no 
longer  properly  interpret  Mozart  and 
Beethoven.  A  strange  blend  of  frivolity 
and  bestiality  began  to  pervade  the 
whole  realm  of  German  art.  Scientific 
eminence  degenerated  pari  passu.  No 
originator  of  the  dimensions  of  Helm- 
holtz  was  produced,  but  a  herd  of  dili- 


86  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

gent  and  thorough  workers-out  of  the  ideas 
got  from  England — like  the  aniline  dyes 
— or  from  France — like  the  Wassermann 
tests  —  and  seldom  credited  to  their 
sources.  So  poor  grew  the  academic 
tone  at  Berlin  that  a  Munich  professor 
declined  an  offer  of  promotion  thither. 

For  forty  years  German  school  chil- 
dren and  university  students  sat  in  the 
thickening  fumes  that  exhaled  from 
Berlin,  spread  everywhere  by  professors 
chosen  at  the  fountainhead.  Any  pro- 
fessor or  editor  who  dared  speak  any- 
thing not  dictated  by  Prussia,  for 
German  credulity  to  write  down  on  its 
slate,  was  dealt  with  as  a  heretic. 

Out  of  the  fumes  emerged  three 
colossal  shapes  —  the  Super-man,  the 
Super-race  and  the  Super-state:  the 
new  Trinity  of  German  worship. 


X 


X 

HITS  was  Germany  shut  in  from 
the  world.  Even  her  Socialist- 
Democrats  abjectly  conformed. 
China  built  a  stone  wall,  Germany  a  wall 
of  the  mind. 

To  assert  that  any  great  nation  has 
in  these  modern  days  deliberately  built 
around  herself  such  a  wall,  may  seem 
an  extreme  statement,  and  I  will  there- 
fore support  it  with  an  instance  —  only 
one  instance  out  of  many,  out  of  hun- 
dreds ;  it  will  suffice  to  indicate  the  sort 
of  information  about  the  world  lying 
outside  the  wall  that  Germany  has 
carefully  prepared  for  the  children  in 
her  schools.  I  quote  from  the  letter 
89 


90  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

of  an  American  parent  recently  living  in 
Berlin,  who  placed  his  children  in  a 
school  there:  "The  text  books  were 
unique.  I  suppose  there  was  not  in 
any  book  of  physics  or  chemistry  that 
they  studied  an  admission  that  a  citi- 
zen of  some  other  country  had  taken 
any  forward  step;  every  step  was  by 
some  line  of  argument  assigned  to  a 
German.  As  you  might  expect,  the 
history  of  the  modern  world  is  the  work 
of  German  Heroes.  The  oddest  ex- 
ample, however,  was  the  geography 
used  by  Katherine.  (His  daughter,  aged 
thirteen.)  This  contained  maps  indi- 
cating the  Deutsche  Gebiete  (the  Ger- 
man "spheres  of  influence"  in  foreign 
lands)  in  striking  colors.  In  North 
and  South  America,  including  the  United 
States  and  Canada,  there  are  said  to  be 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  91 

three  classes  of  inhabitants  —  negroes, 
Indians  and  Germans.  For  the  United 
States  there  is  a  black  belt  for  negroes 
and  a  middle-west  section  for  Indians; 
but  the  rest  is  Deutsche  Gebiete.  Can- 
ada is  occupied  mainly  by  Indians.  The 
matter  was  brought  to  my  attention 
because  one  of  Katherine's  girl  friends 
asked  her  whether  she  was  of  negro  or 
Indian  blood;  and  when  she  replied 
she  was  neither  her  friend  pointed  out 
that  this  was  impossible  for  she  surely 
was  not  German."  Information  less 
laughable  about  the  morals  taught  in 
the  German  schools  I  forbear  to  quote. 
During  forty  years  Germany  sat  within 
her  wall,  learning  and  repeating  Prussian 
incantations.  It  recalls  those  savage 
rites  where  the  participants,  by  shouting 
and  by  concerted  rhythmic  movements, 


92    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

work  themselves  into  a  frothing  state. 
This  has  befallen  Germany.  Within 
her  wall  of  moral  isolation  her  sight 
has  grown  distorted,  her  sense  of  pro- 
portion is  lost ;  a  set  of  reeling  delusions 
possesses  her  —  her  own  greatness,  her 
mission  of  Kultur,  her  contempt  for 
the  rest  of  mankind,  her  grievance  that 
mankind  is  in  league  to  cramp  and  sup- 
press her. 

These  delusions  have  been  attended 
by  their  proper  Nemesis :  Germany  has 
misunderstood  us  all  —  everybody  and 
everything  outside  her  wall. 

Like  the  bewitched  dwarfs  in  certain 
old  magic  tales,  whose  talk  reveals  their 
evil  without  their  knowing  it,  Germans 
constantly  utter  words  of  the  most  naif 
and  grotesque  self-betrayal  —  as  when 
the  German  ambassador  was  being  es- 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  93 

corted  away  from  England  and  was 
urged  by  his  escort  not  to  be  so  down- 
cast; the  war  being  no  fault  of  his. 
He  answered  in  sincere  sadness: 

"Oh,  you  don't  realize !  My  future 
is  broken.  I  was  sent  to  watch  England 
and  tell  my  Emperor  the  right  moment 
for  him  to  strike,  when  England's  in- 
ternal disturbances  would  make  it  im- 
possible for  her  to  fight  us.  I  told  him 
the  moment  had  come." 

Or  again,  when  a  German  in  Brussels 
said  to  an  American : 
-  "We  were  sincerely  sorry  for  Belgium; 
but  we  feel  it  is  better  for  that  country 
to  suffer,  even  to  disappear,  than  for 
our  Empire,  so  much  larger  and  more 
important,  to  be  torpedoed  by  our 
ireacherous  enemies." 

Or    again,    when    Doctor    Dernburg 


94    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

shows  us  why  Germany  had  to  murder 
eleven  hundred  passengers: 

"It  has  been  the  custom  heretofore 
to  take  off  passengers  and  crew.  .  .  . 
But  a  submarine  .  .  .  cannot  do  it. 
The  submarine  is  a  frail  craft  and  may 
easily  be  rammed,  and  a  speedy  ship  is 
capable  of  running  away  from  it." 

No  more  than  the  dwarf  has  Germany 
any  conception  what  such  candid  words 
reveal  of  herself  to  ears  outside  her 
Teutonic  wall  —  that  she  has  walked 
back  to  the  morality  of  the  Stone  Age 
and  made  ancient  warfare  more  hideous 
through  the  devices  of  modern  science. 

Thus  her  Nemesis  is  to  misunderstand 
the  world.  She  blundered  as  to  what 
Belgium  would  do,  what  France  would 
do,  what  Russia  would  do;  and  she 
most  desperately  blundered  as  to  what 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  95 

England  would  do.    And  she  expected 
American  sympathy. 

Summarized  thus,  the  Prussianizing 
of  Germany  seems  fantastic;  fantastic, 
too,  and  not  of  the  real  world,  the  utter 
credulity,  the  abject,  fervent  faith  of 
the  hypnotized  young  men.  Yet  here 
are  a  young  German's  recent  words. 
I  have  seen  his  letter,  written  to  a  friend 
of  mine.  He  was  tutor  to  my  friend's 
children.  Delightful,  of  admirable  edu- 
cation, there  was  no  sign  in  him  of 
hypnotism.  He  went  home  to  fight. 
There  he  inhaled  afresh  the  Prussian 
fumes.  Presently  his  letter  came,  just 
such  a  letter  as  one  would  wish  from  an 
ardent,  sincere,  patriotic  youth  —  for 
the  first  pages.  Then  the  fumes  show 
their  work  and  he  suddenly  breaks  out 
in  the  following  intellectual  vertigo: 


96  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

"Individual  life  has  become  worthless; 
even  the  uneducated  men  feel  that 
something  greater  than  individual  hap- 
piness is  at  stake,  and  the  educated  know 
that  it  is  the  culture  of  Europe.  By 
her  shameless  lies  and  cold-blooded 
hypocrisy  England  has  forfeited  her 
claim  to  the  title  of  a  country  of  culture. 
France  has  passed  her  prime  anyway, 
your  country  is  too  far  behind  in  its 
development,  the  other  countries  are 
too  small  to  carry  on  the  heritage  of 
Greek  culture  and  Christian  faith  —  the 
two  main  components  of  every  higher 
culture  to-day;  so  we  have  to  do  it, 
and  we  shall  do  it  —  even  if  we  and 
millions  more  of  us  should  have  to  die." 

There  you  have  it !  A  cultivated 
student,  a  noble  nature,  a  character  of 
promise,  Prussianized,  with  millions  like 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  97 

him,  into  a  gibbering  maniac,  and  flung 
into  a  caldron  of  blood  !  Could  tragedy 
be  deeper?  Goethe's  young  Wilhelm 
Meister  thus  images  the  ruin  of  Ham- 
let's mind  and  how  it  came  about: 
"An  oak  tree  is  planted  in  a  costly  vase, 
which  should  only  have  borne  beautiful 
flowers  in  its  bosom;  the  roots  expand 
and  the  vase  is  shattered."  Thus  has 
Prussia,  planted  in  Germany,  cracked 
the  Empire. 


XI 


XI 

ND  now  we  are  ready  for  the 
Prussian  Creed.  The  follow- 
ing is  an  embodiment,  a  com- 
posite statement,  of  Prussianism,  com- 
piled sentence  by  sentence  from  the 
utterances  of  Prussians,  the  Kaiser  and 
his  generals,  professors,  editors,  and 
Nietzsche,  part  of  it  said  in  cold 
blood,  years  before  this  war,  and  all  of 
it  a  declaration  of  faith  now  being 
ratified  by  action: 

"We  Hohenzollerns  take  our  crown 
from  God  alone.  On  me  the  Spirit  of 
God  has  descended.  I  regard  my  whole 
.  .  .  task  as  appointed  by  heaven.  Who 
opposes  me  I  shall  crush  to  pieces. 
101 


102  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

Nothing  must  be  settled  in  this  world 
without  the  intervention  ...  of  ... 
the  German  Emperor.  He  who  listens 
to  public  opinion  runs  a  danger  of  in- 
flicting immense  harm  on  .  .  .  the  State. 
When  one  occupies  certain  positions  in 
the  world  one  ought  to  make  dupes 
rather  than  friends.  Christian  morality 
cannot  be  political.  Treaties  are  only 
a  disguise  to  conceal  other  political 
aims.  Remember  that  the  German 
people  are  the  chosen  of  God. 

"Might  is  right  and  ...  is  decided 
by  war.  Every  youth  who  enters  a 
beer-drinking  and  dueling  club  will  re- 
ceive the  true  direction  of  his  life.  War 
in  itself  is  a  good  thing.  God  will  see 
to  it  that  war  always  recurs.  The 
efforts  directed  toward  the  abolition 
of  war  must  not  only  be  termed  foolish, 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  103 

but  absolutely  immoral.  The  peace  of 
Europe  is  only  a  secondary  matter  for 
us.  The  sight  of  suffering  does  one 
good;  the  infliction  of  suffering  does 
one  more  good.  This  war  must  be  con- 
ducted as  ruthlessly  as  possible. 

"The  Belgians  should  not  be  shot 
dead.  They  should  be  ...  so  left  as 
to  make  impossible  all  hope  of  recovery. 
The  troops  are  to  treat  the  Belgian 
civil  population  with  unrelenting  severity 
and  frightfulness.  Weak  nations  have 
not  the  same  right  to  live  as  powerful 
.  .  .  nations.  The  world  has  no  longer 
need  of  little  nationalities.  We  Germans 
have  little  esteem  and  less  respect  .  .  . 
for  Holland.  We  need  to  enlarge  our 
colonial  possessions;  such  territorial  ac- 
quisitions we  can  only  realize  at  the 
cost  of  other  states. 


104  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

"  Russia  must  no  longer  be  our  frontier. 
The  Polish  press  should  be  annihilated 
.  .  .  likewise  the  French  and  Dan- 
ish. .  .  .  The  Poles  should  be  allowed 
.  .  .  three  privileges :  to  pay  taxes, 
serve  in  the  army,  and  shut  their  jaws. 
France  must  be  so  completely  crushed 
that  she  will  never  again  cross  our  path. 
You  must  remember  that  we  have  not 
come  to  make  war  on  the  French  people, 
but  to  bring  them  the  higher  Civiliza- 
tion. The  French  have  shown  them- 
selves decadent  and  without  respect 
for  the  Divine  law.  Against  England 
we  fight  for  booty.  Our  real  enemy  is 
England.  We  have  to  ...  crush  ab- 
solutely perfidious  Albion  .  .  .  subdue 
her  to  such  an  extent  that  her  influence 
all  over  the  world  is  broken  forever. 

"German   should   replace   English   as 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    105 

the  world  language.  English,  the  bas- 
tard tongue  .  .  .  must  be  swept  into 
the  remotest  corners  .  .  .  until  it  has 
returned  to  its  original  elements  of  an 
insignificant  pirate  dialect.  The  Ger- 
man language  acts  as  a  blessing  which, 
coming  direct  from  the  hand  of  God, 
sinks  into  the  heart  like  a  precious 
balm.  To  us,  more  than  any  other 
nation,  is  intrusted  the  true  structure 
of  human  existence.  Our  own  country, 
by  employing  military  power,  has  at- 
tained a  degree  of  Culture  which  it 
could  never  have  reached  by  peaceful 
means. 

"The  civilization  of  mankind  suffers 
every  time  a  German  becomes  an  Amer- 
ican. Let  us  drop  our  miserable  at- 
tempts to  excuse  Germany's  action. 
We  willed  it,  Our  might  shall  create 


106  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

a  new  law  in  Europe.  It  is  Germany 
that  strikes.  We  are  morally  and  in- 
tellectually superior  beyond  all  com- 
parison. .  .  .  We  must  .  .  .  fight  with 
Russian  beasts,  English  mercenaries  and 
Belgian  fanatics.  We  have  nothing  to 
apologize  for.  It  is  no  consequence 
whatever  if  all  the  monuments  ever 
created,  all  the  pictures  ever  painted, 
all  the  buildings  ever  erected  by  the 
great  architects  of  the  world,  be  de- 
stroyed. .  .  .  The  ugliest  stone  placed 
to  mark  the  burial  of  a  German  grenadier 
is  a  more  glorious  monument  than  all 
the  cathedrals  of  Europe  put  together. 
No  respect  for  the  tombs  of  Shake- 
speare, Newton  and  Faraday. 

"They  call  us  barbarians.  What  of 
it?  The  German  claim  must  be:  ... 
Education  to  hate.  .  .  .  Organization 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  107 

of  hatred.  .  .  .  Education  to  the  de- 
sire for  hatred.  Let  us  abolish  unripe 
and  false  shame.  ...  To  us  is  given 
faith,  hope  and  hatred;  but  hatred  is 
the  greatest  among  them." 


XII 


XII 

AN  the  splendid  land  of 
Goethe  unlearn  its  Prussian 
lesson  and  regain  its  own 
noble  sanity,  or  has  it  too  long  inhaled 
the  fumes?  There  is  no  saying  yet. 
Still  they  sit  inside  their  wall.  Like  a 
trained  chorus  they  still  repeat  that 
England  made  the  war,  that  Louvain 
was  not  destroyed,  that  Rheims  was 
not  bombarded,  that  their  Fatherland 
is  the  unoffending  victim  of  world- 
jealousy.  When  travelers  ask  what 
proofs  they  have,  the  trained  chorus 
has  but  one  reply:  "Our  government 
officials  tell  us  so."  Berlin,  Cologne, 
Munich  —  all  their  cities  —  give  this 
111 


112  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

answer  to  the  traveler.  Nothing  that 
we  know  do  they  know.  It  is  kept  from 
them.  Their  brains  still  wear  the  Prus- 
sian uniform  and  go  mechanically  through 
the  Prussian  drill.  Will  adversity  lift 
this  curse? 

Something  happened  at  Louvain  — 
a  little  thing,  but  let  it  give  us  hope. 
In  the  house  of  a  professor  at  the  Uni- 
versity some  German  soldiers  were  quar- 
tered, friendly,  considerate,  doing  no 
harm.  Suddenly  one  day,  in  obedience 
to  new  orders,  they  fell  on  this  home, 
burned  books,  wrecked  rooms,  destroyed 
the  house  and  all  its  possessions.  Its 
master  is  dead.  His  wife,  looking  on 
with  her  helpless  children,  saw  a  soldier 
give  an  apple  to  a  child. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said;  "you,  at 
least,  have  a  heart." 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    113 

"No,  madam,"  said  the  German;  "it 
is  broken." 

Goethe  said :  "  He  who  wishes  to 
exert  a  useful  influence  must  be  careful 
to  insult  nothing.  .  .  .  We  are  become 
too  humane  to  enjoy  the  triumphs  of 
Csesar."  Ninety  years  after  he  said 
this  Germany  took  the  Belgian  women 
from  their  ruined  villages  —  some  of 
these  women  being  so  infirm  that  for 
months  they  had  not  been  out-of-doors 
—  and  loaded  them  on  trains  like  cattle, 
and  during  several  weeks  exposed  them 
publicly  to  the  jeers  and  scoffs  and  in- 
sults of  German  crowds  through  city 
after  city. 

Perhaps  the  German  soldier  whose 
heart  was  broken  by  Louvain  will  be 
one  of  a  legion,  and  thus,  perhaps, 
through  thousands  of  broken  German 


114  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

hearts,  Germany  may  become  herself 
again.  She  has  hurled  calamity  on  a 
continent.  She  has  struck  to  pieces  a 
Europe  whose  very  unpreparedness  an- 
swers her  ridiculous  falsehood  that  she 
was  attacked  first.  Never  shall  Europe 
be  again  as  it  was.  Our  brains,  could 
they  take  in  the  whole  of  this  war, 
would  burst. 

But  Calamity  has  its  Pentecost. 
When  its  mighty  wind  rushed  over 
Belgium  and  France,  and  its  tongues  of 
fire  sat  on  each  of  them,  they,  too,  like 
the  apostles  in  the  New  Testament, 
began  to  speak  as  the  Spirit  gave  them 
utterance.  Their  words  and  deeds  have 
filled  the  world  with  a  splendor  the  world 
had  lost.  The  flesh,  that  has  dominated 
our  day  and  generation,  fell  away  in 
the  presence  of  the  Spirit.  I  have 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  115 

heard  Belgians  bless  the  martyrdom 
and  awakening  of  their  nation.  They 
have  said : 

"Do  not  talk  of  our  suffering;  talk 
of  our  glory.  We  have  found  our- 
selves." 

Frenchmen  have  said  to  me:  "For 
forty-four  years  we  have  been  unhappy, 
in  darkness,  without  health,  without 
faith,  believing  the  true  France  dead. 
Resurrection  has  come  to  us."  I  heard 
the  French  Ambassador,  Jules  Jusse- 
rand,  say  in  a  noble  speech:  "George 
Eliot  profoundly  observes  that  to  every 
man  comes  a  crisis  when  in  a  moment, 
without  chance  for  reflection,  he  must 
decide  and  act  instantly.  What  de- 
termines his  decision?  His  whole  past, 
the  daily  choices  between  good  and  evil 
that  he  has  made  throughout  his  previous 


116    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

years  —  these  determine  his  decision. 
Such  a  crisis  fell  in  a  moment  on  France ; 
she  acted  instantly,  true  to  her  historic 
honor  and  courage." 

Every  day  deeds  of  faith,  love  and 
renunciation  are  done  by  the  score  and 
the  hundred  which  will  never  be  re- 
corded, and  every  one  of  which  is  noble 
enough  to  make  an  immortal  song.  All 
over  the  broken  map  of  Europe,  through 
stricken  thousands  of  square  miles,  such 
deeds  are  being  done  by  Servians,  Rus- 
sians, Poles,  Belgians,  French  and  Eng- 
lish,—  yes,  and  Germans  too, — the  souls 
of  men  and  women  rising  above  their 
bodies,  flinging  them  away  for  the  sake 
of  a  cause.  Think  of  one  incident  only, 
only  one  of  the  white-hot  gleams  of  the 
Spirit  that  have  reached  us  from  the 
raging  furnace.  Out  from  the  burning 


,  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY     117 

cathedral  of  Rheims  they  were  dragging 
the  wounded  German  prisoners  lying 
helpless  inside  on  straw  that  had  begun 
to  burn.  In  front  of  the  church  the 
French  mob  was  about  to  shoot  or  tear 
to  pieces  those  crippled,  defenseless 
enemies.  You  and  I  might  well  want 
to  kill  an  enemy  who  had  set  fire  to 
Mount  Vernon,  the  house  of  the  Father 
of  our  Country. 

For  more  than  seven  hundred  years 
that  great  church  of  Rheims  had  been 
the  sacred  shrine  of  France.  One  minute 
more  and  those  Germans  lying  or  crawl- 
ing outside  the  church  door  would  have 
been  destroyed  by  the  furious  people. 
But  above  the  crash  of  rafters  and  glass, 
the  fall  of  statues,  the  thunder  of  bom- 
barding cannon,  and  the  cries  of  French 
execration,  rose  one  man's  voice.  There 


118  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

on  the  steps  of  the  ruined  church  stood 
a  priest.  He  lifted  his  arms  and  said : 

"Stop;  remember  the  ancient  ways 
and  chivalry  of  France.  It  is  not  French- 
men who  trample  on  a  maimed  and  fallen 
foe.  Let  us  not  descend  to  the  level  of 
our  enemies." 

It  was  enough.  The  French  remem- 
bered France.  Those  Germans  were 
conveyed  in  safety  to  their  appointed 
shelter  —  and  far  away,  across  the  lands 
and  oceans,  hearts  throbbed  and  eyes 
grew  wet  that  had  never  looked  on 
Rheims. 

These  are  the  tongues  of  fire ;  this  is 
the  Pentecost  of  Calamity.  Often  it 
must  have  made  brothers  again  of 
those  who  found  themselves  prone  on 
the  battlefield,  neighbors  awaiting  the 
grave.  In  Flanders  a  French  officer 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY  119 

of  cavalry,  shot  through  the  chest,  lay 
dying,  but  with  life  enough  still  to  write 
his  story  to  the  lady  of  his  heart.  He 
wrote  thus: 

"There  are  two  other  men  lying  near 
me,  and  I  do  not  think  there  is  much 
hope  for  them  either.  One  is  an  officer 
of  a  Scottish  regiment  and  the  other  a 
private  in  the  uhlans.  They  were  struck 
down  after  me,  and  when  I  came  to  my- 
self I  found  them  bending  over  me, 
rendering  first  aid.  The  Britisher  was 
pouring  water  down  my  throat  from 
his  flask,  while  the  German  was  en- 
deavoring to  stanch  my  wound  with 
an  antiseptic  preparation  served  out  to 
their  troops  by  the  medical  corps.  The 
Highlander  had  one  of  his  legs  shattered, 
and  the  German  had  several  pieces  of 
shrapnel  buried  in  his  side. 


120    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

"In  spite  of  their  own  sufferings,  they 
were  trying  to  help  me;  and  when  I 
was  fully  conscious  again  the  German 
gave  us  a  morphia  injection  and  took 
one  himself.  His  medical  corps  had 
also  provided  him  with  the  injection 
and  the  needle,  together  with  printed 
instructions  for  their  use.  After  the 
injection,  feeling  wonderfully  at  ease, 
we  spoke  of  the  lives  we  had  lived  before 
the  war.  We  all  spoke  English,  and  we 
talked  of  the  women  we  had  left  at  home. 
Both  the  German  and  the  Britisher  had 
been  married  only  a  year.  .  .  . 

"  I  wondered  —  and  I  suppose  the 
others  did  —  why  we  had  fought  each 
other  at  all.  I  looked  at  the  High- 
lander, who  was  falling  to  sleep,  ex- 
hausted, and,  in  spite  of  his  drawn 
face  and  mud-stained  uniform,  he  looked 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    121 

the  embodiment  of  freedom.  Then  I 
thought  of  the  Tricolor  of  France  and 
all  that  France  had  done  for  liberty. 
Then  I  watched  the  German,  who  had 
ceased  to  speak.  He  had  taken  a  prayer 
book  from  his  knapsack,  and  was  try- 
ing to  read  a  service  for  soldiers  wounded 
in  battle.  And  .  .  .  while  I  watched 
hun  I  realized  what  we  were  fighting 
for.  .  .  .  He  was  dying  in  vain,  while  the 
Britisher  and  myself,  by  our  deaths,  would 
probably  contribute  something  toward 
the  cause  of  civilization  and  peace." 

Thus  wrote  this  young  French  officer 
of  cavalry  to  the  lady  of  his  heart,  the 
American  lady  to  whom  he  was  engaged. 
The  Red  Cross  found  the  letter  at  his 
side.  Through  it  she  learned  the  man- 
ner of  his  death.  This,  too,  is  the 
Pentecost  of  Calamity. 


XIII 


XIII 

ND  what  do  the  women  say 
—  the  women  who  lose  such 
men?  Thus  do  they  decline 
to  attend  at  The  Hague  the  Peace  Con- 
gress of  foolish  women  who  have  lost 
nobody : 

"  How  would  it  be  possible,  in  an  hour 
like  this,  for  us  to  meet  women  of  the 
enemy's  countries  ?  .  .  .  Have  they  dis- 
avowed the  .  .  .  crimes  of  their  govern- 
ment? Have  they  protested  against 
the  violation  of  Belgium's  neutrality? 
Against  offenses  to  the  law  of  nations? 
Against  the  crimes  of  their  army  and 
navy  ?  If  their  voices  had  been  raised 
it  was  too  feebly  for  the  echo  of  their 
125 


126  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

protest  to  reach  us  across  our  violated 
and  devastated  territories.  .  .  ." 

And  one  celebrated  lady  writes  to  a 
delegate  at  The  Hague : 

"  Madam,  are  you  really  English  ?  .  .  . 
I  confess  I  understand  better  English- 
women who  wish  to  fight.  ...  To  ask 
Frenchwomen  in  such  an  hour  to  come 
and  talk  of  arbitration  and  mediation 
and  discourse  of  an  armistice  is  to  ask 
them  to  deny  their  nation.  ...  All 
that  Frenchwomen  could  desire  is  to 
awake  and  acclaim  in  their  children, 
their  husbands  and  brothers,  and  in 
their  very  fathers,  the  conviction  that 
defensive  war  is  a  thing  so  holy  that  all 
must  be  abandoned,  forgotten,  sacrificed, 
and  death  must  be  faced  heroically  to 
defend  and  save  that  which  is  most 
sacred  .  .  .  our  country.  ...  It  would 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY     127 

be  to  deny  my  dead  to  look  for  any- 
thing beside  that  which  is  and  ought 
to  be !  —  if  the  God  of  right  and  jus- 
tice, the  enemy  of  the  devil  and  of 
force  and  crazy  pride,  is  the  true  God." 
Thus  awakened  and  transfigured  by 
Calamity  do  men  and  women  rise  in 
their  full  spiritual  nature,  efface  them- 
selves, and  utter  sacred  words.  Ca- 
lamity, when  the  Lusitania  went  down, 
wrung  from  the  lips  of  an  awakened 
German,  Kuno  Francke,  this  noble  burst 
of  patriotism: 

Ends  Europe  so?     Then,  in  Thy  mercy, 

God, 
Out  of  the  foundering  planet's  gruesome 

night 
Pluck  Thou  my  people's  soul.    From  rage 

and  craze 


128    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

Of  the  staled  Earth,  0  lift  Thou  it  aloft, 
Re-youthed,    and   through   transfiguration 

cleansed; 

So  beaming  shall  it  light  the  newer  time, 
And  heavenly,  on  a  world  refreshed,  un- 
fold. 
Soul  of  my  race,  thou  sinkest  not  to  dust. 

If  Germany's  tragedy  be,  as  I  think, 
the  deepest  of  all,  the  hope  is  that  she, 
toe,  will  be  touched  by  the  Pentecost 
of  Calamity,  and  pluck  her  soul  from 
Prussia,  to  whom  she  gave  it  in  1870. 
Thus  shall  the  curse  be  lifted. 


XIV 


XIV 

ND  what  of  ourselves  in  this 
well-nigh  world-wide  cloud- 
burst? 

Every  man  has  walked  at  night 
through  gloom  where  objects  were  dim 
and  hard  to  see,  when  suddenly  a  flash 
of  lightning  has  struck  the  landscape 
livid.  Trees  close  by,  fences  far  off, 
houses,  fields,  animals  and  the  faces  of 
people  —  all  things  stand  transfixed  by 
a  piercing  distinctness.  So  now,  in  this 
thunderstorm  of  war,  each  nation  and 
every  man  and  woman  is  searchingly 
revealed  by  the  perpetual  lightnings. 
Whatever  this  American  nation  is,  what- 
ever aspect,  noble  or  ignoble,  our  De- 
131 


132  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

mocracy  shows  in  the  glare  of  this 
cataclysm,  is  even  already  engraved  on 
the  page  of  History,  will  be  the  portrait 
of  the  United  States  in  1914-15  for  all 
time. 

I  want  no  better  photograph  of  any 
individual  than  his  opinion  of  this  war. 
If  he  has  none,  that  is  a  photograph  of 
him.  Last  autumn  there  were  Americans 
who  wished  the  papers  would  stop  print- 
ing war  news  and  give  their  readers  a 
change.  So  we  have  their  photographs, 
as  well  as  those  of  other  Americans  who 
merely  calculated  the  extra  dollars  they 
could  squeeze  out  of  Europe's  need  and 
agony.  But  that  —  thank  God  !  —  is 
not  what  we  look  like  as  a  whole. 
Our  sympathy  has  poured  out  for  Bel- 
gium a  springtide  of  help  and  relief;  it 
has  flowed  to  the  wounded  and  afflicted 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    133 

of  Poland,  Servia,  France  and  England. 
A  continuous  publishing  of  books,  maga- 
zine articles  and  editorials,  full  of  jus- 
tice and  of  anger  at  Prussia's  long- 
prepared  and  malignant  assault,  should 
prove  to  Europe  that  American  hearts 
and  heads  by  the  thousand  and  hundred 
thousand  are  in  the  right  place.  Merely 
the  stand  taken  by  the  New  York  Sun, 
New  York  Times,  Outlook  and  Philadel- 
phia Public  Ledger  —  to  name  no  more 
—  saves  us  from  the  reproach  of  moral 
neutrality :  saves  us  as  individuals. 

Yet,  somehow,  in  Europe's  eyes  we 
fall  short.  The  Allies,  in  spite  of  their 
recognition  of  our  material  generosity, 
find  us  spiritually  wanting.  In  the 
London  Punch,  on  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania,  Britannia  stands  perplexed 
and  indignant  behind  the  bowed  figure 


134    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

of  America,  and,  with  a  hand  on  her 
shoulder,  addresses  her  thus : 

In  silence  you  have  looked  on  felon  blows, 
On  butcher's  work  of  which  the  waste 

lands  reek; 
Now,  in  God's  name,  from  Whom  your 

greatness  flows, 
Sister,  will  you  not  speak  ? 

This  is  asked  of  us  not  as  individuals 
but  as  a  nation;  and  as  a  nation  our 
only  spokesman  is  our  Government: 
"Sister,  will  you  not  speak?"  Well  — 
we  did  speak;  but  after  nine  months 
of  silence.  This  silence,  in  the  opinion 
of  French  and  Belgian  emissaries  who 
have  talked  to  me  with  courteous  frank- 
ness, constitutes  our  moral  failure. 

"When  this  war  began"  —  they  say 
—  "we  all  looked  to  you.    You  were  the 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY     135 

great  Democracy;  you  were  not  in- 
volved; you  would  speak  the  justifying 
word  we  longed  for.  We  knew  you 
must  keep  out  politically;  this  was 
your  true  part  and  your  great  strength. 
We  altogether  agreed  with  your  Presi- 
dent there.  But  why  did  your  univer- 
sities remain  dumb?  The  University  of 
Chicago  stopped  the  mouth  of  a  Belgian 
professor  who  was  going  to  present  Bel- 
gium's case  in  public.  Your  press  has 
been  divided.  The  word  we  expected 
from  you  has  never  come.  You  sent  us 
your  charity;  but  what  we  wanted  was 
justice,  ratification  of  our  cause." 

To  this  I  have  answered  : 

"First  —  Our  universities  do  not  and 
cannot  sit  like  yours  in  high  seats,  in- 
spiring public  opinion.  I  wish  they  did. 
Second  —  We  are  not  yet  melted  into 


136  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

one  nationality;  we  are  a  mosaic  of 
languages  and  bloods;  yet,  even  so, 
never  in  my  life  have  I  seen  the  Ameri- 
can press  and  people  so  united  on  any 
question.  Third  —  Our  charity  is  our 
very  way  —  the  only  way  we  have  —  of 
telling  you  we  are  with  you.  I  am  glad 
you  recognize  the  necessity  of  our  po- 
litical neutrality.  Anything  else  would 
have  been,  both  historically  and  as  an 
act  of  folly,  unprecedented.  Fourth  — 
Do  not  forget  that  George  Washington 
advised  us  to  mind  our  own  business." 

But  they  reply :  "  Isn't  this  your  own 
business?"  And  there  they  touch  the 
core  of  the  matter. 

Across  the  sea  the  deadliest  assault 
ever  made  on  Democracy  has  been 
going  on,  month  after  month.  We 
send  bread  and  bandages  to  the 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY    137 

wounded;  individually  we  denounce  the 
assault.  Columbia  and  Uncle  Sam  stand 
looking  on.  Is  this  quite  enough  ?  War 
being  out  of  the  question,  was  there 
nothing  else?  No  protest  to  register? 
Did  the  wide  ocean  wholly  let  Columbia 
out?  Europe,  weltering  in  her  own 
failure,  had  turned  towards  us  a  wistful 
look. 

I  cannot  tell  what  George  Washington 
would  have  thought;  I  only  know  that 
my  answer  to  my  European  friends 
leaves  them  unconvinced  —  and  there- 
fore how  can  it  quite  satisfy  me  ?  Minds 
are  exalted  now,  and  white-hot.  When 
they  cool,  what  will  our  historic  likeness 
be  as  revealed  in  the  lightnings  of  this 
cosmic  emergency?  Will  it  be  the  por- 
trait of  a  people  who  sold  its  birthright 
for  a  mess  of  pottage?  Viewing  how 


138    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

we  have  given,  and  the  tone  of  our  press, 
perhaps  this  would  hardly  be  just.  Yet 
I  can  not  but  regret  that  we  did  not  pro- 
test. What  we  lost  in  not  doing  so  I 
see  clearly;  I  can  not  see  clearly  what 
we  gained.  We  may  argue  thus  in  our 
defense :  If  it  is  deemed  that  we  missed 
a  great  opportunity  in  not  protesting  as 
signatories  of  the  violated  Hague  con- 
ventions, are  not  OUT  proofs  of  the  vio- 
lations more  authentic  now  than  at  the 
time?  WTiat  we  heard  was  incredible 
to  American  minds.  We  had  never 
made  or  known  such  war.  By  the  time 
the  truth  was  established  a  protest  might 
have  seemed  somewhat  belated.  Well, 
this  is  all  the  explanation  we  can  offer. 
Is  it  enough  ? 

It  is  too  early  to  answer;  certain  it  is 
that   not   as   we   see    ourselves   but   as 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY     139 

others  see  us,  so  shall  we  forever  be. 
Certain  it  is  also,  and  eternally,  that 
through  suffering  alone  men  and  nations 
find  their  greater  selves.  It  is  fifty  years 
since  we  Americans  knew  the  Pentecost 
of  Calamity.  These  years  have  been  too 
easy.  We  have  not  had  to  live  danger- 
ously enough.  We  have  prospered,  we 
have  been  immune,  and  our  prosperity 
has  proved  somewhat  a  curse  in  disguise. 
In  these  tunes  that  uncover  men's 
souls  and  the  souls  of  nations,  has  our 
soul  come  to  light,  or  only  our  huge, 
lavish  body?  In  1865  we  had  found 
our  soul  indeed.  Where  is  it  gone  ?  We 
have  been  witnessing  many  "scholarly 
retreats,"  and  every  day  we  have  had 
to  hear  the  "  maxims  of  a  low  prudence." 
Have  they  sunk  to  the  core  and  killed 
it  ?  God  forbid !  But  since  August,  1914, 


140  THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

we  have  stood  listening  to  the  cry  of  our 
European  brothers-in-Liberty.  They  did 
not  ask  our  feeble  arm  to  strike  in  their 
cause,  but  they  yearned  for  our  voice 
and  did  not  get  it.  Will  History  acquit 
us  of  this  silence  ? 

Meanwhile,  the  maxims  of  a  low  pru- 
dence, masquerading  as  Christianity, 
daily  counsel  us  to  keep  our  arm  feeble. 
It  was  not  so  that  Washington  survived 
Valley  Forge,  or  Lincoln  won  through 
to  Appomattox.  If  the  Fourth  of  July 
and  the  Declaration  it  celebrates  still 
mean  anything  to  us,  let  our  arm  be 
strong. 

This  for  our  own  sake.  For  the  sake 
of  mankind,  if  this  war  brings  home  to 
us  that  we  now  sit  in  the  council  of  na- 
tions and  share  directly  in  the  general 
responsibility  for  the  world's  well-being, 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY     141 

we  shall  have  taken  a  great  stride  in 
national  and  spiritual  maturity,  and  our 
talk  about  the  brotherhood  of  man  may 
progress  from  rhetoric  towards  realiza- 
tion. 


XV 


w 


XV 

E  have  yet  to  find  our 
greater  selves.  We  have 
also  yet  to  realize  that 
Europe,  since  the  Spanish  War,  has 
counted  us  in  the  concert  of  great  na- 
tions far  more  than  we  have  counted 
ourselves. 

Somebody  wrote   in   the    New   York 
Sun: 

We  are  not  English,  German,  Swede, 
Or  Austrian,  Russian,  French  or  Pole; 

But  we  have  made  a  separate  breed 
And  gained  a  separate  soul. 

It  sounds  well ;   it  means  nothing ;   its 
sum  total  is  zero.    America  asserts  the 
K  145 


146    THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

brotherhood  of  man  and  then  talks  about 
a  separate  soul  I 

To  speak  of  the  Old  World  and  the 
New  World  is  to  speak  in  a  dead  lan- 
guage. The  world  is  one.  All  hu- 
manity is  in  the  same  boat.  The 
passengers  multiply,  but  the  boat  re- 
mains the  same  size.  And  people  who 
rock  the  boat  must  be  stopped  by  force. 
America  can  no  more  separate  itself 
from  the  destiny  of  Europe  than  it  can 
escape  the  natural  laws  of  the  universe. 

Because  we  declared  political  inde- 
pendence, does  any  one  still  harbor  the 
delusion  that  we  are  independent  of  the 
acts  and  fortunes  of  monarchs?  If  so, 
let  him  consider  only  these  four  events : 
In  1492  a  Spanish  Queen  financed  a 
sailor  named  Columbus  —  and  Europe 
reached  out  and  laid  a  hand  on  this 


THE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY     147 

hemisphere.  In  1685  a  French  King 
revoked  an  edict  —  and  thousands  of 
Huguenots  enriched  our  stock.  In  1803 
a  French  consul,  to  spite  Britain,  sold  us 
some  land  —  it  was  pretty  much  every- 
thing west  of  the  Mississippi.  One 
might  well  have  supposed  we  were  inde- 
pendent of  the  heir  of  Austria.  In 
1914  they  killed  him,  and  Europe  fell 
to  pieces  —  and  that  fall  is  shaking 
our  ship  of  state  from  stem  to  stern. 
There  may  be  some  citizens  down  in 
the  hold  who  do  not  know  it  —  among  a 
hundred  million  people  you  cannot  ex- 
pect to  have  no  imbeciles. 

Thus,  from  Palos,  in  1492,  to  Sarajevo, 
in  1914,  the  hand  of  Europe  has  drawn 
us  ever  and  ever  closer. 

Yes,  indeed;  we  are  all  in  the  same 
boat.  Europe  has  never  forgotten  some 


148    TfiE  PENTECOST  OF  CALAMITY 

words  spoken  here  once:  "That  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for 
the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth."  She  waited  to  hear  us  repeat 
that  in  some  form  when  The  Hague 
conventions  we  signed  were  torn  to  scraps 
of  paper.  Perhaps  nothing  save  calam- 
ity will  teach  us  what  Europe  is  thank- 
ful to  have  learned  again  —  that  some 
things  are  worse  than  war,  and  that  you 
can  pay  too  high  a  price  for  peace ;  but 
that  you  cannot  pay  too  high  for  the 
finding  and  keeping  of  your  own  soul. 


[FiNis] 


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rather  than  dwelt  upon.  The  object  of  interest  is  always  his 
character ;  the  things  placed  in  the  foreground  are  the  epi- 
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